Wake Forest, UCLA want control of research monkeys

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) — Wake Forest University wants sole responsibility for about 475 research monkeys at a center it co-owns with the University of California at Los Angeles.

UCLA also wants control of the 475 vervet monkeys at the Forsyth County center, The Winston-Salem Journal reported.

The desires were expressed at a hearing was Thursday in Winston-Salem to try speed action a lawsuit between the two schools. Wake Forest University Health Sciences sued in December to end a joint venture with UCLA.

The board of regents for the University of California system countersued, accusing Wake Forest of financially mismanaging the 200-acre research center and accusing Wake researchers using the monkeys for unauthorized non-genetic research.

Wake Forest said it considers that its lawsuit ended the agreement between the two schools for the research. An attorney for the regents, Terry Ross, disagrees on the status of the agreement, but said the school is prepared to take possession of the monkeys.

Both schools consider the monkeys a valuable research asset. Some of the monkeys belong to families that have been tracked for eight generations.

Wake Forest has said it is willing to close the colony if UCLA doesn't agree to continue to pay its part of the operating costs. Both parties agreed the center is operating at a loss related to the colony's upkeep, in part because of a drop in federal grant funding.

A federal magistrate is considering whether to recommend that UCLA's lawsuit be dismissed or whether the case should go to trial in North Carolina.